I stood
and said, `Let the Cannibals stand with the Cannibals!'
But no man budged.--I will not weary thee, best doctor,
with our woes! At last St. Vincent rose out of sea, and
we presently came to Cadiz. Many died upon the voyage,
and among them Caonabo. In the harbor here we find
Pedro Alonzo Nino who will bear my letters.
"In Cadiz I discover both friends and not friends. The
sovereigns are at Burgos, and thither I travel. My fortunes
are at ebb, yet will the flood come again!"
Time passed. Hispaniola heard again from him and
again. When ships put forth from Cadiz -and now ships
passed with sufficient regularity between Spain in Europe
and Spanish Land across Ocean-Sea-he wrote by them.
He believed in the letter. God only knows how many he
wrote in his lifetime! It was ease to him to tell out, to
dream visibly, to argue his case on fair paper. And those
who came in the ships had stories about him-El Almirante!
Were his fortunes at ebb, or were they still in flood?
There might be more views here than one. Some put in
that he was done for, others clamored that he was yet
mounting.
But he wrote to the Adelantado and also to Juan Lepe
that he sat between good and bad at court. The Queen
was ever the great head of the good. We knew from him
that Pedro Margarite and Father Buil and Juan Aguado
altered nothing there.
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